G Suite for Education Now Open for Personal Google Accounts, Outside Domains

Homeschoolers, tutoring programs, lifelong learners and others without Google’s G Suite for Education accounts can now access Google Classroom from their personal Google account. The company has also added controls for administrators to grant access to users from outside G Suite domains to join.

Google said in a blog post announcement that teachers and students now have the ability to use their personal accounts to teach or attend classes and manage assignments. (Plus, sometime over the coming weeks, personal accounts will be allowed to create their own classes.) Classroom administrators will notice updated settings with new controls that grant greater control over who can join their classes. For instance, administrators can now invite outside G Suite users by e-mail, like visiting teachers or students, to quickly integrate into their Classroom.

Opening up Classroom to more users was a move to provide teachers and students more flexibility in how they collaborate, the blog post explained. "We see value in bringing technology to people who want to learn, no matter the setting."

The company said that schools interested in using Google Classroom should still sign up for G Suite for Education.